Pictures
by Darling Pretty
Summary: Addison collects pictures of people in her life. Or at least she used to. She doesn't have very many since coming to Seattle. Almost everyone's disappeared. Can one intern change that? Addex. Oneshot.


**that's right, another oneshot. happy friday. it's pretty cheesy, but i like it. hope you do too.**

**-insert generic disclaimer here-**

Addison's office was once filled with pictures. Pictures of her and Derek. Her and Savvy. Derek and Mark. Just about everyone who was important to her had a picture in her office. There had been so many that she was considering the small couch as a viable space to place them, except then she had remembered that people actually needed to sit on it.

In the two months with Mark, her collection considerably diminished. Any picture of Mark or Derek was removed and put in a box. She felt too guilty to look at Derek's smiling face, and Mark, well, honestly she didn't want to be reminded of what was waiting for her at home. Because, although she did love Mark, it hurt to look at him. That's why she was so relieved when she had found out about Mark's infidelities. Besides, he was Mark, and she knew Mark wasn't into the whole monogamy thing. The entire time they were together, she was just waiting for the day that some girl approached her and casually mentioned that she had slept with Addison's boyfriend. So Mark went into the box too. And with Mark went Savvy and Weiss and her other New York friends, because they just reminded her of Derek and Mark, so they got put away too.

By the time Addison got to Seattle, her picture collection had diminished down to a picture of her and an old school friend, one who had no connections to Mark or Derek or just about anyone in Addison's life aside from Addison herself, and her favorite picture of her and Derek that she had allowed herself to take out of the box.

During the time she was fighting for Derek, her collection grew by only two pictures. One, a picture of Derek's profile, taken on the ferry boat, when he was actually looking happy for once, and one of her and Callie that had been taken after one too many drinks at Joe's. She's looking happy for once in that one and Callie's expression is priceless, so she keeps that one in a frame on her desk.

Now she's down to two pictures. The two with Derek have been banished to the box with the rest of her old life. Now she's back to that old school friend and Callie. And also two empty frames which she has yet to stash. She hates those frames with a passion, but her desk drawers and file cabinets are so stuffed that she has no choice but to stare at them until she remembers to take them home and put them in the box. And one day she will remember, but some small, masochistic part of her wants them there to remind her of just how badly she's screwed up and how empty her life is now.

The part of her that's not relishing her own pain, that part knows that those frames don't need to go into the box, they need to be filled. Not with pictures of friends from elementary school or college, or Callie, but with a picture that they're accustomed to framing. Not a husband, necessarily, but someone she cares about in a more than platonic sense.

She's staring at the frames when Alex Karev sneaks up on her. "I'm gonna go home," he announces.

She jumps about a foot out of her chair. "Oh, Karev," she gasps. "You startled me."

He smirks. "You should have seen the look on your face just now," he laughs. "Priceless."

She frowns. "It's not that funny."

"Except it is. What were you staring at, anyways?"

"Nothing, exactly," she answers. He comes around the desk. She shifts, uncomfortable with the line he's crossing. At least before she had the desk as a shield. Now she has nothing.

"Um, Addison, you have two empty frames on your desk," he states.

"Yeah, so? And since when do you call me Addison? Shouldn't it be Dr. Montgomery?" she asks, hoping to bring everything back to the strictly professional level.

"So it's weird to have two empty frames on your desk. There's no point to them. And right now, we're being friends, and friends don't call each other by Dr."

"I haven't had time to take them home. And since when did we become friends?"

"You don't think we're friends?"

"I think you're asking a bunch of uncharacteristic questions."

"And I think you're avoiding answering."

"What do you want me to say, Alex? Yes? We're not friends, not exactly. We're people who work together, not friends. I've never even seen you outside of work!"

"Do you want to?"

"Want to what?"

"See me out of work."

"What?"

"I could take you out for drinks."

"What, like a date?"

"No, like a friend thing."

Addison thinks it through. What's the worse that can happen? After all, he's a guy, and she has two empty picture frames. "Okay. Fine. Just let me grab my coat."

"You off?" He looks surprised she agreed.

"I've been off for an hour. I just didn't feel like going back to the hotel."

The look he gives her confuses her. It's not exactly pitiful, it's more like… sad. "You gonna take the frames?" he reminds her.

She glances at the frames and back at him. "I'll get them later," she says, pulling on her coat.

Drinks are successful. After the initial awkwardness, they find it relatively easy to keep conversation flowing. In fact, drinks are so successful that they are repeated, then joined by dinner, coffee breaks, and lunch. To anyone unfamiliar with the pair, it would look suspiciously like dating, but it's not. They become so close that Alex merits his own picture in her office. It's just a strip of photos from a booth that they squeezed into before dinner one night, both of them goofing off, but Addison tapes it to her computer.

The frames are still there on her desk, waiting to be filled or taken away. Alex always asks her if she's going to take them that night, and she always glances at them and protests that she doesn't want to deal with it, so they stay in place.

She notices him looking at her one morning, and mentions it. "You're staring at me."

He shakes it off. "No, I'm not. You meeting someone tonight?"

"No. Why?"

"You just look… really good today."

She smiles. "Thanks, I think."

"It's a compliment, don't worry."

"Well, thank you," she says, and moves to kiss his cheek, but something stops her a couple of inches from his face and she just stares at him. He looks back at her and she loses her breath. And then suddenly her lips are on his and he's most definitely reciprocating the kiss. "I- I'm sorry, I shouldn't have-" she stutters when they break away.

"Addie, don't start avoiding me," he requests calmly.

"I shouldn't have done that," she berates herself, "I'm so stupid. I'm sor-"

"Adds, shut up. You should have done that," he informs her and kisses her again.

After that little incident, Addison has more pictures. A lot more pictures. Only around ten million of her and Alex, some of her and Callie, some of her and Izzie, even a couple of her and Meredith. The two interns actually have become some of her closest, okay, only friends in Seattle, thanks to the whole friends-by-proxy thing. She pulls out some pictures of Savvy and Weiss and all of her old New York friends. Her desk slowly fills up with pictures, but she refuses to fill the two frames. In her mind, one now represents Derek, and one represents Mark, and she doesn't want to change that. Besides, Alex isn't filling in for Derek or Mark, she reasons, so he deserves his very own new frame. But she keeps those two frames on her desk. Eventually she runs out of room on her desk and starts using the tops of her file cabinets. And one day she looks at the two empty frames and decides she's had enough. So she takes them home and stores them and places a picture of her Seattle friends at a staff dinner that the hospital held and a picture of her and Alex. That one's her favorite of all. Callie had ambushed them with a camera, and Addison hadn't had time to slip off of Alex's lap and they're laughing at the surprise. It captures one of those secret moments that she and Alex don't usually share with anyone, and it makes her realize just how great a thing she has.

Now she's struggling to find room for one more picture, her absolute favorite of Alex. She had pulled a Callie and surprised Alex with a camera, and he grinned, but not when he saw the camera. No, in the picture it's clear that he doesn't see the camera, just the person behind it.

**reviews make me very, very happy.**

**-Juli-**


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